Archive for September, 2012

Below is a collage of the logos of national level institutes and universities of Odisha. (IIIT is trying to get there.) Note that except NIT Rourkela, which started as an REC in 1961 and became NIT in 2002, the rest have been established in the last 5 years:

Today we removed the scrolling text about Vedanta University. We still have some hope on its happenning, but all depends on the Supreme Court and we have no idea how long that will take. The scrolling text that we removed was as follows:

Vedanta University, as envisioned, could have been a game changer for Odisha and India. However, its parameters (Rs 15K crores initial budget, 10K faculty, 6K+ acres, etc.) were so audacious that many well-meaning people were skeptical about it, opposed it and criticized the Odisha government for standing behind it. But precisely those audacious parameters made it a once-in-a-millennium type opportunity for Odisha and India. Ex-CM of Andhra, Rosaiah, a Congressman recognized it and wrote to the chairman of Anil Agarwal Foundation (AAF): "I request you to choose Andhra Pradesh as the state has a unique capacity and culture to nurture the institute of your dreams that will put Indian education back on the global map. I depute the chief executive officer of AP Invest, the state government’s nodal agency, to make a detailed presentation to you in this regard. I assure you that the state government will extend every possible support to this endeavour. Your vision of building a research university of the stature of Stanford in India, your dream of providing higher education of global standards to over one lakh students is all the more heartening." So most of the political opposition to Vedanta University was opportunistic and political parties that opposed it in Odisha had their governments in Andhra (Congress) and Karnataka (BJP) wooing it. Any way, the land acquisition for Vedanta University case is in the Supreme court for a year and half now, and who knows when it will be decided. Meanwhile the Vedanta University website is gone. So this whole thing may be dead. However, being a born optimist, I still have a very slim hope that some day this may all be revived. I am keeping these pages so that even if it does not happen people will one day realize the folly by exploring the pages here and in facebook. The facebook pages have support statements from many Odisha origin academics from Odisha and abroad. Please read what they say.